We told you the other day about some of the titles missing in action at E3. It would appear that the mystery behind Rainbow 6: Patriots not being shown has been answered by UbiSoft. According to Tony Key from UbiSoft in a discussion with IGN, he stated that the game was, “…still in active development”, but “the best thing for the brand was not to bring it to the show right now.”

While a trailer was released last December that looked like the game was very promising, then news was released that changes to the team were taking place, with Jean-Sebastian Decant taking change of the title. Whispers behind the scenes suggested a number of issues going on with the development team and the project schedule, but none of this ever seemed to be confirmed by multiple sources.

While Key said that the project was slated for the current generation of consoles, he did suggest that the full schedule of titles at E3 to show contributed to the decision not to show Rainbow 6: Patriots. While this is all well and good, Key had no additional release date information. Our sources tell us that an 2012 release is pretty much impossible and a late 2013 release is likely; but it could even slip into early 2014, depending on how development remains.

According to a number of sources, Microsoft has apparently spoken to close partners and filled in the final blanks on what the hardware configuration is going to look like on the Next Xbox or Xbox 720. Perhaps the most interesting news is that Microsoft is still targeting a release during the holiday season of 2013; and the latest news suggests that Sony could be closer to releasing the PlayStation 4 than had been thought.

The hardware for the Xbox 720 seems to be very close to what we have been hearing, with a few exceptions. The CPU will be four or six cores, depending on some decisions that will be made closer to launch. We do know that one of the CPU cores will be reserved for Kinect, which will be included with the 720; and one of them will be allocated to the OS. This is why we believe that a six-core processor will be the ultimate decision despite additional cost.

Perhaps the most interesting news is that while the unit will be powered by something like a customized AMD 7000 series GPU, the Xbox 720 is said to be getting two of these GPUs. The two GPUs are said to run in a normal dual PC style setup: the GPUs take turns drawing lines of the same object or the dual GPU configuration can run independently of each other, drawing or rendering independently of the other GPU. It is believed that the configuration is more independent and simultaneous, rather than dual GPU technologies such as CrossFire or SLI. In addition, it is believed that the power of the GPUs can also be leveraged to offer DirectCompute style functionality.

The 720 will feature a Blu-ray drive standard and the drive is said to be enhanced for better performance and access times. While it isn’t confirmed, it is most likely that the drive has been tuned for backwards compatibility; and that does seem likely given the choice of a CPU in the same family. The 720 will come standard with the next generation Kinect, which will apparently be built into the device.

The final decision on storage has yet to be finalized. As we told you, Microsoft is apparently still considering some sort of solid state solution for storage, but we are told that going with a hard drive has not been ruled out, either. As for actual software delivery, that also has not been finalized. It is apparently possible that Microsoft could offer both a solid state card solution as well as a Blu-ray disc solution, depending on developer needs.

More intriguing information is that Durango will apparently require an “always on” Internet connection as an anti-piracy measure. It is unclear if any offline play will be allowed on the unit. Apparently, the unit will need to be connected to the Internet even when playing single player games. Slow Internet connections are said to be “OK” for this connection. While you may not have enough bandwidth or too high of latency to play online, it will apparently be enough to allow you to use/access the console. It will be interesting to see how Microsoft does this so that it does not overly contribute to the bandwidth caps that many are starting to endure.

A number of sources are whispering to us that Bethesda has apparently cancelled Prey 2. The game, which has been in development for some time at Human Head Studios, is going to be dropped. According to our sources (which seems to be confirmed by other reports circulating on the Internet) Bethesda will make an official announcement at some point next week.

Right now, Bethesda has no comment on the status of Prey 2. The fact that Bethesda isn’t saying anything does not mean anything. It would seem, however, that Bethesda does have a track record with these cancellation rumors, with a mega rumor last year that DOOM 4 had been canceled by the publisher. Later, Bethesda issued a statement saying that DOOM 4 had not been cancelled.

We will just have to wait and see how this plays out, but it is likely that we are going to hear something next week one way or the other.

AMD is telling the world+dog that Microsoft’s next generation console will pack speedy graphics capable of delivering movie-like quality.

AMD exec Neal Robinson says the new Xbox 720 will feature graphics on a par with James Cameron’s blockbuster Avatar, all powered by AMD.

However, Robinson did not directly confirm that the next generation console was in the works, although he talked about next generation hardware that could bring realism to a whole new level.

For example, the extra power could allow massive improvements in A.I. any physics, so every pedestrian you shoot at in GTA will react differently, making a news worthy killing spree a bit more challenging.

Over the last few months Google news has become increasingly difficult for me to use, thanks to the most incredible dumb logic ever to come out of a so-called innovative company.

Only an American could think that a country speaks a single language, even a country which has a huge Spanish population. This arrogance has effectively stuffed up Google news.

Fudzilla's Rome office is multi-lingual. I speak and write English and Italian swearwords, however according to Google I should just be speaking Italian and only be interested in Italian news written in that language.

Google's Chrome helpfully translates the site from Italian to English for me, but in some cases it is translating English content into Italian and back to English. You should be able to configure the default so that it visits the region I want but according to Google I don't want that.

“The customization (sic) of search results based on location is an important component of a consistent, high-quality search experience. Therefore, we haven't provided a way to turn off location customization, although we've made it easy for you to set your own location or to customize using a general location as broad as the country that matches your local domain,” Google tells me.

I can set my controls to take into account a broader geographical area (such as a country instead of a city, zip code, or street address), but Google has decided I don't want to see English information, because I am Italy.

The “new look” Google page appears to be even worse. I have to call the Italian Goddess over to tell me what each of the new buttons mean before I can decide they can't solve the predicament.

Google's argument seems to be that it has set itself so that I can find the local restaurants and information I need. The point is that I don't want that, I want to know what is going on in Redmond and what the local rag has to say about it in a language which I can understand.

That has not been a problem in the past, but Google's programming is finally getting too clever for its own good. For the first time since Google was formed I am now researching other search engines. This is tricky because I loathe Bing.

I am told it is equally impossible for other foreigners who do not speak the official language of the country they are in and want to know the news from their homeland rather than where they live. That includes tourists.

Now everyone can say “well you live in Italy you should be fluent with Italian”, but really that is not the issue. I want information and it is not up to US search engine to spout at me “don't you know Italian or wot?” when that country exports fat, ignorant, loud, tourists who can't even manage English to Rome every day. Of course they are probably unable to understand their browsers.

It is easier to have given me what I want from a service than it was to develop complex programming to actually stop me getting it. Who knows? Google might have developed a way for me to see the news content I want, but unfortunately the website is in Italian and er.... I don't read Italian.

Nvidia's new Geforce GTX 580 is going to be cooler and a bit quieter than the Geforce GTX 480, a.k.a. original Fermi. From what we have managed to find out, the new card has similar TDP to Geforce GTX 480, but its cooler is redesigned and works more efficiently than the previous one.

Don’t get carried away, as the card will be hot, with a TDP of slightly under 250W. It has to be hot, but at least it will be heavy and fancy looking.

Naturally someone will develop a water block for this card as it simply makes sense to water cool it, as you can gain some more performance when overclocking this already hot card. Of course, the water cooler will come at a hefty price, as it always costs significantly more due to the small numbers of coolers that people buy for €500 cards.

Many people don’t go along with Geforce GTX 580 name as the card should end up with Geforce GTX 490 or similar, but as you know Nvidia ups the numbers every year, sometimes even by simply renaming products. Geforce 200 became Geforce 300 without any significant change, but the Geforce 400 series have deserved its name.

Geforce 500 cards are a tweak, a real kicker so you will be able to tell the difference, especially with GTX 560 parts that should bring a lot of performance in sub $ (€)200 market.

As for the rumous that this is a paper launch, we can definitely tell you that people have cards as we speak, the big names are testing them now and they should get available on the November 9th, after the official launch.

Gamers want XFX based Fermi cards, we've heard it ourselves and the company sources have confirmed it on a few occasions.

The story is quite simple, Nvidia is still punishing XFX for going with ATI chips and they are simply not happy that this long time Nvidia-only supporter wanted to turn to the red side.

As Nvidia is not powerful enough to punish guys like Palit and the companies around this brand, it tends to focus its hate on XFX.

XFX long time brand supporters want Fermi cards, they wanted Geforce GTX 480, they would go for GTX 470 and especially some overclocked GTX 460 cards, but Nvidia still doesn’t let XFX do what it knows best.

ATI is profiting here as XFX is turning all of its talent and sales force on their products and some special cards such as Radeon HD 5970 with a massive overclock and 4GB of memory. Gamers are the ones to suffer as some of them only want XFX cards and nothing else, but still some of them want Nvidia and nothing else.

The ball is in Nvidia’s court and in the meantime XFX are selling more and more AMD cards and more customers switching to ATI just because XFX is doing well. Unless Nvidia's sales machine reasons, they are risking losing all XFX fans to ATI. With BFG out of the picture this is the last thing that Nvidia needs, especially now that ATI has never been stronger.

The chances of the search outfit Google in China getting the sort of market share it enjoys in the rest of the world has suddenly become more remote after the Government backed Xinhua News Agency said it will launch its own search engine.

Xinhua said it signed a framework agreement with China Mobile, the world's biggest phone carrier by subscribers, to set up a search and international media company. It said work has reached a "substantive operation" stage. It did not say if the plan was aimed at the Internet or at mobile phone-based search but it could easily be for both.

According to Reuters, the communist government is trying to build up Chinese technology industries and at the same time is giving Xinhua and other state media billions of dollars to expand their presence in foreign markets.

Google China market share, has declined since the U.S. company closed its mainland search engine in March to avoid cooperating with Beijing's Web censorship. Mainland Web surfers can use Google's Chinese-language Hong Kong site but many are defecting to local rivals such as Baidu which operates China's most popular search engine.

AMD has released source code for BIOS of a Gigabyte Technology
motherboard. The move will allow Open Source developers to reprogram BIOS
according to their needs. It will help Linux users to get better overclocking
functionality or unlock some of the features.

The BIOS has been released under the GPL and relates to
the Gigabyte M57SLI-S4 motherboard's BIOS. Gigabyte M57SLI-S4 motherboard is based
on Nvidia Nforce 570 SLI core-logic, and supports various AMD processors in socket
AM2 form. The board also supports four slots for DDR2 memory, two PCI Express x16 slots for two graphics cards in multi-GPU SLI
mode, three PCI Express x1 ports for add-in cards, six Serial ATA-300
connectors for hard disk drives with RAID support, ten USB 2.0 connectors and
three Firewire ports.

The Free Software Foundation has been campaigning for some
time for a Free BIOS because it is a key component in the software stack of
personal computers. We don’t know if this is an isolated case of more
manufactures will release their bioses for public use. It is an outdated
motherboard but it is a step forward.

Punk's not dead and AGP still lives. Gecube has announced X1950XT AGP card based on 90nm R580+ GPU with 48 pixel Shaders. The card has 256MB of 256-bit GDDR3 memory but the clocks haven't been released. The GPU works at 648MHz and it has a chance to be the fastest ATI's AGP based card on market.

The card is cooled by Gecubes exclusive X-Turbo Termo Electric Cooler. Gecube also sells X1950Pro PCIe card, based on 80nm RV570 GPU with the same cooler. After the success of PCIe card the company decided to present yet another card with TEC cooling, the X1950XT AGP.

TEC stands for Termo Electric Cooler and is based on Peltier effect. Peltier cooler is a solid-state heat pump that uses electrical energy to create a transfer of temperature between two different types of materials, in this case GPU and a heatsink. Heatsink is connected to the base of heatsink by four heat pipes. Two of them are reserved for TEC while other two are reserved for standard air cooling.

You will be able to overclock the card with ATI's Overdrive control panel, and as Gecube says it will be possible to set GPU speeds over 675MHz. This will be enough to beat the referent clocks of X1950XTX.

ATI's fastest Radeon X1950XTX works at 650MHz. Memory clock haven't been announced but we believe that it should settle at 1400MHz. We believe that the card is powered with 1.2ns Samsung memory that we already seen on X1950Pro PCIe version of the card. We will probably see the card at Cebit.